GlobalFoundries: New 3-D transistors not needed yet

Intel made an announcement Wednesday that it has developed 3-D transistors for computer chips made in its factories at the 22 nanometer level.

It is being hailed as one of the biggest developments in the semiconductor industry in decades, since currently computer chips use transistors that have flat, or planar, architecture.

Such 3-D transistors are supposed to use less power and have faster capabilities.

This diagram shows a traditional transistor at left with Intel's new 3-D transistor on the right. The flow of the current through the new transistor is three dimensional, which Intel says dramatically improves performance and energy efficiency.

The Times Union asked GlobalFoundries, which is building a $4.6 billion computer chip factory in Malta, whether this would have an impact on its operations at all.

Jason Gorss, a company spokesman who specializes in technical matters, said that GlobalFoundries has longstanding programs to evaluate next-generation transistors, including the 3-D kind, which are also known as “FinFET” structures.

Some of this research activity has taken place at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering on Fuller Road, he said in partnership with the IBM research alliance.

He said this story talks about that work, which took place at the 22 nanometer level.

(Note: The computer chip industry describes the types of chips that it makes at nanometer levels. These levels describe the smallest size of features on the chip. And the smaller the features, the faster and cheaper the chips will be. For instance, a 22 nm chip has transistors with gates 22 nm across. The gates control the current flow in the chip, which are like signals in the brain.)

The GlobalFoundries factory in Malta, known as Fab 8, is going to make chips at the 28 nm and 20 nm level for now.

But Gorss said that GlobalFoundries doesn’t see the need now for 3-D transistors until beyond the 20 nm level, so it doesn’t appear that Wednesday’s Intel announcement is having that big of an impact on Fab 8.

“We have been able to achieve our customer requirements for performance and power-efficiency at 20 nm by focusing on other innovations with planar technology,” Gorss said.